20 Ingenious DIY Projects To Take A Home From Average To Awesome For Next To Nothing

Some People still live in a home that hasn’t been redecorated since the ’70s, complete with shag carpet and floral linoleum. Others just pumped their savings into a brand-spankin’ new home and it needs a few final touches to make it look slick. Unfortunately, classing up a boring home can be expensive—but it doesn’t need to be.

You can turn your lifeless house into a home with real character and all it takes are a few projects that’ll add a touch of oo la la to your living room. The best part of it all? They don’t require much technical know-how or money at all. Yep, these 20 DIY project ideas will easily take your home from average to awesome!

1. Floating Shelf: Let’s start things off simply. There’s little more to a floating shelf than a shaped piece of wood and a rope, but they’ll add a special something to any room, especially if decorated with gorgeous plants or personal knickknacks.

HGTV Handmade / YouTube

2. Electrical Tape Décor: Walls don’t have to just be canvasses for paint. Try inexpensively creating insane patterns fit for an art museum on them with electrical tape! Similarly, you can add sleek stripes to out-of-date appliances.

3. Mason Jar Chandelier: Dreaming of regal chandeliers? While these cute mason jars might fall just short of what you might find in a royal dining room, they can be an awesome, eye-popping addition to any home. Best of all? You just need hanging bulbs and jars to create this unique look.

East Coast Creative

4. Rustic Shutter Bench: Decrepit shutters can make the outside of your house look ancient, but they’re too cool to just trash. So why not re-purpose them? With the addition of legs, and some TLC, shutters can make unique benches—the focal point of a dining room.

6. Antique a Mirror with Fabric: By simply lining the edges of a mirror—or even an old picture frame—with a fabric that matches other colors in the room, you can create an accent piece that’ll pull together any room.

The Crafts Channel / YouTube

7. Stainless Steel Paint: Stark white kitchen appliances like refrigerators are relics of decades past, and all the electrical tape in the world can’t make them cool again. With stainless steel paint—yes, paint!—you can give the fridge a more modern look.

Today’s Homeowner

8. Trashcan End Tables: When decorating, it’s easy to forget about end tables and how expensive they can be. But by simply sticking two wire-frame trash cans butt-to-butt, you can circumvent cost and get a nifty, customized living room accent piece.

JustMagan 247 / YouTube; BargainBethany / YouTube

9. Upcycle: Like end tables, brand new furniture will set you back. A solution? Salvage older furniture from thrift stores and decorate. Re-purpose chairs into coffee bars or place fabric patterns onto weathered dressers. Really, the possibilities are endless.

Home Design Inspiration

10. Paint Shower Fixtures: Similarly, water-stained fixtures can hamper the looks of an otherwise gorgeous shower. But by just sanding them down and adding a coat of paint—one that matches the bathroom décor—you can make them an asset to a beautiful room.

11. Succulent Garden: Succulents along the windowsill can add color and life to a dead and dull room. Either leave ’em in small ceramic pots or create a larger, more diverse piece that’ll draw everyone’s eyes. Either way, they’ll take little effort to maintain.

Hannah Hagler / YouTube

12. Paint Exposed Pipes: For the most part, pipes are not something you feature in a home, but something you hide away. With a touch of gold or matte black paint, though, they can give a bathroom an interesting, modern look.

Lovely Indeed

13. Build Honeycomb Shelves: Square shelves? For squares, maybe. Crafting honeycomb-style shelves—by breaking up the monotony of straight lines in your home—can make a bedroom far more pleasing to the eye.

Phillips Made / YouTube

14. Marble Contact Paper: For just a few dollars, you can buy an adhesive vinyl that cloaks anything in luxurious marble. Cheap kitchen counters and islands or living room end tables can look ripped right out of a wealthy estate!

15. Mason Jar Soap Dispenser: More mason jars! These soap dispensers give any kitchen or bathroom a hint of Southern flare that’s far classier than just a plain hand soap bottle. And all for the cost of a jar and a nozzle! And hey, if it’s good enough for Rachael Ray…

Rachel Ray Show / YouTube

16. Decorated chairs: Cheap, ugly chairs will drag even a well-decorated room down. Simple patterns like maps pinned to or painted onto an uninspired wooden chair can give any room a more personal and engaging feel.

17. Doormat Headboard: A bold concept, yes, but something worth considering if you’re looking for a striking but cheap bedroom accent. Four doormats organized into a rectangle can make the headboard you’ve been looking for.

FABLifeShow / YouTube

18. Crate Table: Work with crates or have easy access to four of them? Sand them down, coat them with paint, and assemble them into a coffee table that’s as functional as it is unique—perfect for giving a home a coastal feel.

Coffee Tables

19. Rope Baskets: The perfect centerpiece for your crate coffee table? A rope basket. You only need to wrap a rope around an existing basket to make one, but they make a perfect storage place for important loose ends.

DW Englush / YouTube

20. Underground Oven: Ready to take the party outside? A simple dug-out pit filled with firewood and covered with grill racks makes for the perfect barbecue pit or meat smoker. Invite friends over for a tour of your new, classed-up place and then head out back for celebratory grilled meats!

Home Talk

To ‘class up’ a boring home may not be as expensive—or difficult—as you think. Want to see exactly how it’s done? Check out source links for specific how-to instructions…